He's not a pheasant poacher, he's a pheasant poacher's grandson. Join us for trials, tribulations and tipsy tractor trips in Ambridge.

[PseudoBadger]

Will this thread see the end of The Trial? And SOC?

would have been more apt

Yes, I did wonder what was so wonderful about the Cathedral school that they couldn't do better by Freddie with the small classes and other facilities available to them. Indeed, given that Lily is meant to be so bright, they should have been able to get more than As and Bs out of her.

Didn't anyone else want to slap Freddie? All that stuff about what a dump the college was and how it was bound to be full of drug dealers - didn't he wonder for one moment how his cousins came out unaddicted? It's not as if he has any better ideas. I'm wondering if he's going to end up in some expensive tutorial college to avoid mixing with the hoi polloi, only to come under the influence of some public school Hooray Henries and be drawn firmly into the local drug scene.

Yes, I'll stand behind you till you're done with the wet fish, Judy!

In fact, Judy, most of Ambridge did not attend Cathedral School. Maybe it's what soc thinks of state school. Drug dealers and pie shops at every gate ...

Ah. I thought it was SOC having a dig at spoilt, posh brats.

Poor Freddie was only being nasty because he was nervous.

Poor Lizzie. Having her son being exposed to distractions.

Clutching her pearls because there's a nearby pub ...

I did love the way she qualified her statements by saying the education standards and staff were excellent.

Purely for Twitter's benefit.

"Poor Freddie was only being nasty because he was nervous."

No. He was nasty because he's a git.

SOC himself went to a Catholic boys' grammar school in Liverpool and then did English at UCL, so it's a mystery why he seems so fixated on RP southern accents.

He obviously was nervous, but no excuse for the cracks about 'what you might catch in there'!

And Lizzie obviously agreed, or he would have got the bollocking mine would have got for saying something like that..........

Her response was odd, 'don't say things like that or you might start really thinking them?'?? I guess it was a signal for listeners to let him/her/the cathedral school off the hook? Though as judy observes, the CS clearly not all that great shakes anyway was it? No child who's been so consistently touted as naturally academic and all that would be over the moon with 'mostly As and Bs'!

Isn't radio an amazing thing?

All I hear from Freddie atm is pain. When we last heard him, misdelivering packages to Hayley, he was a confused and angry child. Now he's a terrified almost-adult who can't find anything to be good at. Of course he knows (though the SWs may not give him the words) how well all his clever relatives have done at Borchester Sixth Form. He's ashamed and embarrassed and life is suddenly coming at him (just like a parent's death) leaving him no way out.

(And now I've talked myself into feeling even more sorry for him!)

I hear pain too.

But I also hear entitled arsehole.

Not mutually contradictory.

If he didn't know anyone who had been to the college, he might be excusable. But he does, so he isn't.

Agree with you both. Pain ... And also a good dollop of arsehole. Cos arse holes can feel pain too, of course!

We all express pain idiosyncratically and contextually, and Freddie's got some Oedipal shit going on, an inferiority complex in relation to lily, and also some bloody awful snobbish attitudes out of which it is to be hoped he will grow!

Richard and Shula's affair was autumn 1998 (because I was in Borneo, and my mother was posting me more Archer family updates than Bearhug family updates...)

What is the difference between meat paste and pate?

Paste comes in little jars from Shippams and is created from unidentifiable bits of animal. Pate is posher, and usually has identifiable ingredients, such as liver, herbs, whatever. Pate may be coarse or fine. Paste is always smooth.

You would need about 100 jars of paste to do a round of sandwiches for two cricket teams.

I agree he's in pain. But here's the thing, I don't give a s&%@ about most of them any more, sadly. I WOULD have more sympathy if he were real. So Shula and the Dr were at it during ds4's first autumn. I do recall lots of it, must have been mat leave radio listening!

I've no idea where you get all the info on DOBs of characters, etc. but wasn't Ben born beside the Brookfield aga in 1998 too? I was somewhat envious as all I managed was a home labour. In the circs that was quite the achievement.

My DD was very upset with only 7 As and the rest Bs last year. If she'd been at private school she'd have been devastated, not celebrating.
The local schools hear all hav drug dealers, including the private ones (if they get caught at private school they get expelled and Mummy and Daddy have to beg a state school yo take them, and they often get expelled again.)

My DD was very upset with only 7 As and the rest Bs last year. If she'd been at private school she'd have been devastated, not celebrating.
The local schools hear all hav drug dealers, including the private ones (if they get caught at private school they get expelled and Mummy and Daddy have to beg a state school yo take them, and they often get expelled again.)

There's a story in the press about a father who is suing his son's £18 000 per term school cos diddums only passed one GCSE. Maybe lizzee should sue the cathedral school.

As I recall, it was touch and go whether Freddie would get into the Cathedral School. Lily passed the entrance exam easily but Freddie got in on sympathy after Nigel's death.

So it looks as if Cathedral might have done Freddie more favours by not accepting him.

Am I right in thinking he caught up quite well in maths at one stage with Ifty's coaching? If so, he's obviously capable of doing it when properly taught.

I've no idea where you get all the info on DOBs of characters, etc. but wasn't Ben born beside the Brookfield aga in 1998 too?

Ben was born 15th March 2002 (it was a home birth, though not sure about the Aga.) Josh was born September '97.